Finally, I’ve moved on to my Heavy Rain review. I’ve only just now got the Platinum trophy for it, so I’ve seen all the endings you can possibly have for each character, played out every single scene at least three times (even though it takes two times to find the trophy IF you know what they are), and... I’ve done everything. I’m a master. Give me a cookie.
As usual, there might be spoilers. You’ve been warned; you can’t take the cookie back.
In 2006, I watched The Casting after reading a small (read: so small, it was just a mention) article about it in OPM, and I wanted to feed my curiosity. The Casting, especially for the time it was revealed, was absolutely astonishing. I will happily put my hands up in the air and say this video made me start saving for my PS3. Two years passed by and I got the PS3. Another two years later, I had Heavy Rain in a HMV bag, on a bus, on my way home to play it.
Of course, I bought the special edition. I wanted everything I could get from this game.
The start of this game starts off slow. Not boring for me, because I was too busy admiring the architecture of Ethan’s home to care. It’s a nice home. The first few chapters (I will refer to them as chapters in this review – level makes it sound too much like a game) set the scene for the game, and it allows you to get to know the characters. Lunging right into the action is all well and good for some games, but for a game like this, an interactive movie, it needs to start off as a movie. People who have complained about this wouldn’t be complaining if they didn’t have a controller in their hand with the free will.
Whilst playing as Norman, the FBI agent, you can make a very stressful choice to kill a religious, freak man who’s attacking your partner, or talk him out of it. You’re probably thinking: “Yeah, it’s a controller – just push a button for your choice, and it’ll end either way. No big deal.” BUT IT IS A BIG DEAL. I let myself get attached to this game, and I was just dragged mentally into this game, and I felt the stress of the situation. The other cop was shouting at me to pull the trigger, the religious guy was yelling all this mumbo-jumbo, I was standing there with a finger on the trigger not knowing what to do.
Norman is a man who is good at what he does – you just immediately pick that up about him when you first meet him at the start, and the man who he works with, Carter Blake, is just a police officer who doesn’t seem to care who the culprit is, just as long as someone goes down for the crime (in other words, a real asshole). So I felt like I wanted Norman to do the “right” thing; talk the guy out of hurting Blake in a calm and professional manner. And it worked, but I got an earful from Blake when we went back to the car.
I’m probably going too much into it by saying this, but Blake is the prime example of what happens when someone is given too much power. He didn’t think anything of Norman shooting Nathaniel, and bet he would have shot him if it was the other way around. This is exactly what Heavy Rain is; you are given the power to pretty much make everyone’s choices for them. You can be an ass like Blake and make everything go to shit, or you can play like how Norman comes across – the good guy. That being said, there is no right or wrong way to play this game; you just have to live with the consequences for the choices you make.
There are eighteen different endings, but you don’t have to play the game eighteen times to watch them all – some unlock at the same time. So think of it as... there’s a small cut-scene for each character at the end, depending on who lives and who dies. You can find them all using the same saved game, never having to go back past the “On The Lose”, or “Fish Tank” chapter. Not every choice you make in the game effects the ending, but it affects your opinion of characters, and helps you learn to accept the consequences of your actions.
Every single scene is perfect; it’s like someone, a place, a scenario just became a soft copy on a computer overnight. The texturing is pretty good, despite there being a few “odd one out”’s (for example, a bin in the hospital later on in the game has waaay too much shine on it to be realistic), and the loading messing some up for a few seconds (an origami book you look in later can be quite pixelated for a while). There’s a lot of detail, and you can see a lot of care was taken during the creation.
Slipping off of the good points for a moment, because each scene is crammed full of detail, it does take a while to load some things, or the scene will freeze along with the audio. Usually, this lasts a second or two, so it’s no big deal, but on a first play through, you can miss out on important audio (for some reason, the audio will lag out for longer than the freeze). Once or twice the game completely froze, and I had to restart the console – I’ve played for about six hours in the last twenty-four hours, and it did this once to me already.
One thing that happened to me, which was very amusing, was during one ending when Norman is sitting at his desk working (the one with the tanks on the desk... ahem), his entire face scrunched up to his nose, leaving his eyeballs and teeth floating in mid air. It wasn’t as funny when he turned his head for a moment, and his face was pulled out around the room though – floating eyeballs and teeth FTW.
Going into controls, you have to be on your toes for the action sequences that can came from nowhere. Taking your attention elsewhere for more than a few seconds, or being too slow to input commands can lead to a completely different scenario. Every button on the controller is used at some point during the sequences, so it happens. Maybe you planned for that to happen or not, but still.
Movement is made by holding down the R2 button, which isn’t as much of a pain in the butt as you first think it’d be. You can move left and right using the left analog stick, so you move in the direction that the character looks in. It can get quite difficult in some areas, especially when the camera changes. There’s a scene where you’re in a house on fire, and you have to follow a path through to the front door that isn’t on fire for some reason, and it can be quite difficult to get out without setting your pants on fire (which leads to vigorous shaking of the controller if you plan on saving your character before they start rolling around screaming in the flames...).
Now... the story is good. It’s an amazing idea that makes the game feel like a movie. But... I wouldn’t say it was completely flawed, but there are a couple of moments that feel wrong. I guess it’s to do with the choices you make as the “director” though, but some things don’t make sense, and would make you a real shitty director, dreaming of Hollywood. One thing that has been talking about is the sex scene with Ethan and Madison. IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL. No matter what choices you’ve made before, Ethan will always be sitting there as a destroyed man, going over everything he’s done (or didn’t do), and Madison walks in, sits next to him, tells him she knows he isn’t the killer, goes to kiss him (at this point, you can either kiss her back or reject her... I kissed her because sex sells, what can I say?), and then they have sex. The scene is tastefully done – there’s not a whole lot of moaning, cursing, asking for more, bare skin... etc.
But... WHY? Why is there an option for them to have sex? It’s not something that would happen. THEY JUST MET. There’s no development in the relationship up to that point, besides Madison stalking him and playing nurse – even then, he is pretty much out of it when she finds him! Ethan is really not in a good place either, and depending on the choices you’ve made/actions you’ve done, he’s exhausted. Also, he has his kid (who is missing and about to die) to think about.
There’s a few more moments, but I don’t want to spoil anything people might not know yet.
In closing... what an experience Heavy Rain is. If you own a PS3, this is one for the collection in my opinion. It’s not just a game, it’s a whole new take on the PS3, and what it can achieve.
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